OK Gents, especially Tadas seeing as you have only just managed to get in, apologies for the delay.

I am currently having a bit of a rethink in the direction of the game following a thorough, and fully justifiable, berating from a good friend of mine for my recent cut-scene-esque narrative. Let me expand a bit...

Now until taking up this game, my style had always been pure laissez faire when it came to story direction, I never used pre-written plots or stories, and simply allowed the players to create some characters, throw them together in a place and see what happened. The result was usually what can be best described as shenanigans. It would create a light hearted meandering thread without any real direction as players simply reacted to what they found in front of them, often in increasingly silly ways.

Now this culminated in my last EotE game having to be disbanded after two players, completely in character, spent two whole sessions basically fighting and trying to undermine each other. basically one was a spice-addict and the other a smuggler, who by some fortune had happened upon a ship carrying spice. The addict would constantly try to take the spice for himself, whilst the smuggler tried to prevent him so he could sell it. With neither character wanting to engage the other in outright combat due to the unwritten law against player infighting, this continued perpetually with both trying to use less-than-lethal means to achieve their goals without actively incapacitating the other. As I said this continued for two whole sessions causing several players to leave because they simply weren't able to do anything.

As you can imagine this led me to rethink the laissez faire model of GMing and think in a different line. Around this time a conversation between a good friend of mine (a different one), focused around the question as to why so many RPGs (and games in general) were about happy, bright, adventures and capers in magical land, and missed what seemed a great opportunity to explore the darker side of many of the subjects of historical and contemporary humanity.

We therefore elected to design an RPG mechanics set for playing games in a historical representation of mediaeval Europe and the Middle East, a project I am still working on from time to time. It was also at this time that Church handed over the reigns of this game to me, and with us already on route to a slaver's market, I thought this would be a great opportunity to take things into the dark and murky world of the slave trade for an exploration of that subject. I therefore hammered out a rough story about Raeyl and a band of resistance fighters and took things from there. I then got somewhat caught up in the story, now that it involved tare aswell, and the more I thought about it the more it developed. It had then got to the point where the story was completely planned out, and that I had gotten into the mindset of having to convince you guys to go along with the story, rather than simply providing an environment to play in. This obviously went as far as knocking Klay unconscious so he wouldn't object to the path I wanted things to go in, and turning him from Rale's beloved wookiee into a plot device for my story.

So I apologise to everyone, especially Rale, for just stringing you guys along in my personal narrative. Now I do not want to give up being GM, and I want this story to continue because you guys have worked long and hard making some really great characters, and I know you all want to develop them further, so I am leaving what happens next up to you.

We can either use Klay's injury as a plot device for you guys to leave Rorak behind and we will start anew somewhere else after Diyu, or we can continue with the Raeyl plot line, but obviously with you guys much more in charge of what happens.

I appreciate what you are saying here. I'd like to "continue with the Raeyl plot line, but obviously with us more in charge of what happens." I like running darker games as well.
So I'm okay with the subject matter, but as a player I like having freedom to do what I want as well. I like what you presented so far and would like to kick it around a little further.

I actually assumed that you were making up for the game's slow pace for Tada's benefit and didn't think much of it - I'm usually more off-put by lack of narration myself, than having gobs of it. Had you continued with the long bits of uninterruptible action and acting on behalf of Zed once Ares was introduced properly, though, I would have taken it up with you at some point Morrisyman.

For future reference, less direction of my character is welcome. This darker thread of a story is fine by me, as long as you accept that I will try to maintain some (personal) sense of logic in Zed's actions. For instance, I would not have a problem with him walking out of this deal if something bad happened to Klay, even if it was part of the story. As Zed said, from his point of view Raeyl would be a bad business partner having cost the lives of two of his companions (even if indirectly).

On the topic of on-rails versus sandbox; though I haven't GM'ed a campaign there was some podcast I listened to a while back (my guess would be either The Order 66 Podcast or OnRPGs) where they discussed ways to balance both and it made sense to me.

As I recall it, they recommended that you write down a number of things that need to happen in the campaign for your story arc to be completed, though not necessarily all in exact order, with specific NPCs or at pre-set locations. Rather than railroading players through a very strictly-written story, you would then give them hooks to accomplish these various mini-goals which would ensure that things were moving in the right direction in the big picture.

Now, I don't know what kind of a story you've planned and how easy it would be for you to break it up into these kind of mini-goals that would survive a bit more freeform method of playing (without ending up with the kind of problems you described), but I imagine a less scripted story would make it easier for you to run the game, too. Now that I know why you were doing what you were doing, I can definitely see that in the long run it would get tedious for everyone - for you the task of trying to keep our characters following the footsteps you've laid out and for us the limitations on the actions our characters could take.

Perhaps these past few posts have been a necessary if exaggerated corrective measure in your attempt to find a way to fix the problems you've experienced with the laissez faire method. Now you're seeing the other end of the spectrum and perhaps have a better idea where a good middle ground can be found.

I'm certainly not holding any of this against you and fully echo what Rale wrote.

OK, it seems we are going to keep with the Underground storyline for the moment, and I have spent some time reworking the plot to allow for much more freedom as to what happens. I have reunited the group, and revived Klay, so you guys are now off the rails again and free to do what you choose. Klay's injuries will be determined by a resilience check, but should be fairly superficial, and hopefully you won't have to do anything too strenuous until they have had time to heal.

Tadas is now fully part of the main group, if still somewhat on the fringe, but I have left Ares to do what he likes now with the rest of you. Kaz is still going to be controlled by me, but as always will most likely go along with what Klay and Zed decide to do.

In the current room the present NPCs are: Raeyl, Teron, Lendi, and the doctor, and a good number of other undergrounders. Any setting or environment questions, please put them here, or if you want to ask one of the NPCs for information, please do so.

No luck there my furry friend, all you saw was a big load of blaster shots coming your way. However, I will let you know that they weren't all that accurate, but you could probably extrapolate that from the no underground casualties.

Since a couple of days have passed, I've posted again to keep things moving. Morrisyman, Zed will try to find Raeyl and ask her to go over the plan again, this time without interruptions if possible He's interested to find out everything they will need to know, as well as what (if anything) they need to do before the appointed day.